English as a Foreign Language

Multitasking has become a natural way of approaching almost anything we do nowadays.

We’ve been talking about this in class, and becoming more aware of its effects: we spend more time carrying out our tasks, we do them worse and, on top of all, feel anxiety most of the time. In a former blog post you can find out more about multitasking. But if you are looking for solutions, we have some for you!

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It might seem that English pronunciation is difficult to handle. But there are habits that will make it easier for you to pronounce better. Here are a few tips I usually share in class with my students:

TIPS FOR LEARNING SPELLING AND PRONUNCIATION

Keep your own pronunciation record. I always recommend dedicating a few pages on your notebooks to grouping words according to their pronunciation. This is particularly helpful with vowels and vocalic groups. When you learn a new word which has a “weird” pronunciation, write it down with other words that contain the same sound. It can be useful also when there is a word you always seem to be getting wrong.

Learn the symbols of the IPA (international phonetic alphabet). The IPA is an essential tool for language learners. I wouldn’t say it’s necessary to learn to transcribe or even be familiar with every single sound, but you should be aware of some phonemes, as it will enable to pronounce any word at all by simply looking it up in the dictionary. The interactive phonetic chart below may be of some help to get started:

3. Learn to recognize word stress and sentence stress. Stress is the most important features of the English phonological system. Being aware that some syllables and words will not be heard because they are weak forms, while others will surely stand out because they are strong, will make it a little easier for you to start prediciting certain phrases because of their stress patterns. And you’ll finally get to understand the reason why “the English seem to eat up all the words”.

4. Be patient!

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Last year some students in our school took part in the #asísedi campaign, a collaborative activity to learn and raise awareness on the right forms that exist in Galician to refer to everyday aspects of our life.

Students and teachers were invited to write words in Galician on an empty piece of a paper, which remained available and public over a period of time so anyone could stop by and share a word they knew.

The first semantic field we proposed was autumn and we asked people to simply write down or share on social networks what they associated this season with. Many words that were written on the board referred to melancholy, or popular festivities like “O magosto”, “Samaín” or “Tódolos Santos”. What ideas would have added?

After checking the correctness and suitability of the words, we posted the result:

How many of these words do you know in English?

Test your knowledge of English words related to autumn with the quiz below: